MINDY KALING, BODY IMAGE and “THE MINDY PROJECT”

by Kristin Scheimer

I love “The Mindy Project”.   The writing is hilarious, Mindy is delightful and Danny Castellano makes me swoon.

Speaking purely from a writer’s perspective, the humor is top notch and the growing love story between Mindy and Danny is intoxicating.  I’ll be honest, I think Mindy’s career takes a bit of a backseat and those storylines are not as strong as they could be, but I’m too busy thinking about Mindy and Danny to care all that much.

I love comedy and there are a number of very funny shows out there, but with so many shows to choose from, the ones I find I leave in the dust are the ones where there isn’t any sense of suspense or hope that the characters will eventually reach something for which they are so desperately striving. 

On “Cheers” we rooted for Sam and Diane.  On “Friends” we just hoped Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Joey and Ross would find love.  That’s what drives the sitcoms we adore; their search for and optimistic hope for love.

  

And that is what drove me to watch every episode of “The Mindy Project” over a very short period of time.  I wanted so badly for Mindy and Danny to finally be together.

But there is one part of this story of which I was also painfully aware.   As cute and charming and loveable as Mindy is, she is also, by many standards, overweight.  The episode of “The Mindy Project”, “What To Expect When You’re Expecting”, which aired on March 17^th, centered on the subject of weight, attractiveness and love.  As Mindy’s pregnancy progresses, she finds she can no longer fit into her clothes and she begins to reveal her insecurities that Danny couldn’t possibly find her attractive at her weight. 

This hit pretty close to home for me as, in the last few years, I have also become overweight.  This is difficult for me.  I was never a frail waif, but the weight I am now is relatively new for me and quite uncomfortable.  

Many years ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, which is Western Medicine’s way of saying “You have quite a lot of chronic pain throughout your entire body but we don’t know why.”  I was briefly prescribed medication that had the lovely side effect of weight gain.  Thank you, Western Medicine.   I’m now dealing with my “Fibromyalgia” in a not so Western Medicine manner and finding success, albeit slow success.

However what all this means is that the exercise I can do is limited.  My exercise of choice for the last 14 years has been an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art called Capoeira.  Now, I love Capoeira.  It has become a central part of my life.  I’ve trained hard.  I’ve trained like a maniac, even at 10 to 15 years older than most of my fellow students.  But as the pain continued to get worse and worse, this became more difficult and at last impossible.

                                                                                           CAPOEIRA BRASIL LOS ANGELES

I have absolute and total faith, as I slowly start to heal, that I will one day, and hopefully not too far in the future, be able to return to training Capoeira.  I’m not young and perhaps will never train with the fervor I once did, but discipline and motivation to train have never been an issue for me.                                                                                                                  

Self-control and will power are also not an issue and I am rather diligent with my eating habits in an attempt to lose weight, but without the necessary vigorous exercise, this just isn’t having the impact I would like.

The result of which is, I am not at a weight of which I feel comfortable.   I say all of this because, while anyone who struggles with their weight understands how difficult it is and that oftentimes there are other factors involved – these happen to be mine – there seem to be many people out there who simply see the weight and dismiss the person without an understanding that there is more to them than their weight.

Which brings me back to Mindy Kaling and “The Mindy Project”.   I personally think she’s adorable and loveable, but I admit quite freely that as her “will they won’t they” love story with Danny was progressing, I was particularly keen on her ending up with him because it felt like hope for me.  If someone like her, who is not thin and lithe, could find love with someone like Danny, maybe there was hope for me.

What a horrible idea; that somehow our weight makes us less loveable.  Yet that is a very real idea that exists in our society. 

And let’s face it, I live in Los Angeles, where thin is measured by a whole different scale.  There’s skinny and then there’s Hollywood Skinny.    

Once upon a time, this was Hollywood Skinny:

 

Which has somehow turned into this:

There was a time when this was the ideal woman’s body:

 

Now it’s more like this:

Every time period, every culture, in fact every person, has their idea of the perfect body, but Hollywood has a strong tendency to give us a very specific, slim figure as the ideal for which we should all strive.

In 2010, when I was getting ready to shoot my TV Pilot, “Five in a Car”, I was looking for an actress to play the character that was essentially me.  Now, I went to acting school, and I’ve been told I’m quite funny, but when it was suggested – by multiple people – that I just play myself, the first thought that came to my mind was “I would if I wasn’t so heavy.” 

 

 When I told this to my mother, her response was:  “So what?  If you think it’s a problem, just make jokes about it on the show.”  So I did, but then I found myself in a house full of men, whose cultures tend to value women with more meat on their bones. The only jokes that really worked were for them to scoff at me for thinking I needed to lose weight.  Irony, right?  

"FIVE IN A CAR" PILOT

I now have a TV Pilot script, “Complex”, in which again there is a character for which I’d be perfect, but the same thought goes through my head.  “I would love to play this part if I lost a lot of weight.”  And I would.  I would love to be the next Mindy Kaling and star in a show of my own creation.  And despite the fact that she does it with great success, even though she’s a little on the heavy side, I still see Hollywood’s image of the perfect sized woman and I’m not it.

This same obsession with my weight affects my personal life as well.  Watching “The Mindy Project” made me all too aware of thoughts I was having.  “I’m really awesome… aside from being a little heavy.”  “Any guy would be lucky to have me… as long as he was ok with my weight.” 

But Danny loves Mindy.  Adores her.  He feels for her exactly how I would want a man to feel about me.   He doesn’t seem to care that she’s not super thin.  And yes, I am aware that these are fictional characters, but what struck me most about “The Mindy Project” is that while most of Hollywood only lets the thin girls find love, this show tells us that, at least in their opinion, the heavy girls can too.  So why can’t I believe that?  When did I decide being thin meant being loveable?     

I work hard at being smart, well educated, talented, kind, hard working, diligent, determined, charming, funny and yes, loveable.  Truth be told, I also work hard at being thin.  I’m just not – at the moment – as successful at that as I would like.  

I applaud “The Mindy Project” and Fox for shining a light on the insecurity of women who aren’t waifish and trim.

 

I wish I could say it completely rid me of any feelings of self-doubt about my weight.    It hasn’t done that, but it has made me feel that the possibility does exist.  And another fine example of TV excellence has had a positive and encouraging impact on the world – or at least this blonde, curvy writer.